First refugee camp in Rojava

Refugees have begun to arrive at the first refugee camp established in Rojava, in the village of Hekmiye near the city of Derik in the east of the Cizîre Canton.

Dijaw Ehmed, Social Works Minister of the Cizîre Canton, reported that 50 tents have already been set up for arriving refugees, but that work continued and the first plans had been made to increase its capacity to 600 tents.

The Kurdish Red Crescent (Heyva Sor a Kurdistan), which is the equivalent of the Red Cross, has donated 300 tents so far.

The camp first opened to refugees on May 13th and is protected by the Rojava public security forces (Asayiş).

Most camp residents are from cities such as Aleppo, Damascus and Kobanê, and there are both Arabs and Kurds among them.

The goal of the camp is to provide suitable housing for the migrants, to ensure that their daily needs are met, and to tackle social health problems.

Ehmed said work was ongoing to ensure that food would be provided to camp residents at every meal, but that international support would help in such efforts, saying;

"right now outside of the Kurdish Red Crescent there has been no help from foreign aid organizations.

That is there was a visit, and they came and saw the camp but no aid was given. We have also requested that they support us in this."